New Books by Malka Older, Brandon Sanderson, Steven Erikson Coming This September

September has three fantastic book releases lined up for science fiction and fantasy fans. While it’s not as good as August was, there still are books from authors such as Malka Ann Older, Brandon Sanderson, and Steven Erikson. This month is perfect for fans of epic fantasy and science fiction.

State Tectonics by Malka Ann OlderMalka Ann Older’s Centenal Cycle series has made her immensely popular in the science fiction community, with good reason. The series began with the excellent Infomocracy in 2016 (which was her first novel), and was followed up by the even better Null States in 2017. In these two books, the world switches to a global micro-democracy and finally achieves peace. This lasts for around 25 years, when the wheels of the world’s greatest political experiment begin to come off. In September 2018, the trilogy reaches its conclusion with State Tectonics. In State Tectonics, the world peace held together by the micro-democracy is threatening to collapse as a series of events attacks the global election. Even the agents that serve the ruling data monopoly wonder whether it’s worth saving the system that gave them world peace or if it’s time to burn it to the ground and start afresh.

Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds by Brandon SandersonBrandon Sanderson is one of the biggest names in fantasy writing. Sanderson has written several spectacular series of books such as the Mistborn trilogy and The Stormlight Archive series (an ongoing epic fantasy series with three of 10 books published). In fact, most of his work in the epic fantasy genre takes place in the same universe called Cosmere at different times. He’s also the author of the final three books of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, which Sanderson completed after Jordan’s death. That’s why we were surprised to see a new science fiction book published under his name. Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds is a bit of an outlier in terms of books Sanderson has written. It’s a science fiction novel where the protagonist Stephen Leeds is capable of learning anything in a matter of hours. His brain does this by creating personalities within his brain so that in any situation Leeds has a bunch of imaginary experts to consult right inside his brain. Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds is actually a collection of three novellas — Legion, Legion: Skin Deep, and Lies of the Beholder. The last one is new and completes the Legion arc.

The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach by Steven EriksonSteven Erikson is one of the best writers of epic fantasy and his best known work is the 10-book Malazan Book of the Fallen series. The Malazan Book of the Fallen makes Game of Thrones’s body count look tiny. Major characters die left, right, and centre in this series, so much so that characters are almost unrecognisable towards the end of the series. The best thing about the Malazan series is the lore, which spans across many millenia and includes some really heart-rending tales of all-powerful beings. The Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach focus on two wandering characters in the Malazan series, who are necromancers and have lots of inprobable adventures. This book collects books 4-6 in The Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach series (Crack’d Pot Trail, The Wurms of Blearmouth, and The Fiends of Nightmaria).